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Hermit Crab Essay
If you’re looking for a unique way to write an essay, to bend the genre, how about writing a Hermit Crab Essay? “This kind of essay appropriates existing forms as an outer covering, to protect its soft, vulnerable underbelly,” Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola write in their co-authored non-fiction craft book, Tell It Slant. The metaphor of the hermit crab is fitting. They are born without shells, and need to find an empty shell in order to protect themselves. As Brenda and Suzanne write in their book, the same goes for “an essay that...
read moreSalary Gap Between Male and Female Registered Nurses
Though salary differences have narrowed between males and females in many occupations since the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, the results of a study conducted by the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) showed a marked salary gap between male and female registered nurses, with males earning greater than $5000 more per year than females. The largest pay gap was noted in cardiology, and the smallest difference in the chronic care setting. Orthopedics was the only specialty area in which researchers found no significant...
read morePost-Traumatic Vision Syndrome
Did you know that at least sixty areas of the brain are involved with the processing of visual information, and that seventy percent of all sensory information is visual? I didn’t know this. I learned that fiber of trivia from Amy Pruszenski, a doctor of optometry, during her talk about post-traumatic vision syndrome (PTVS) at the Brain Injury Association of Vermont annual conference this past October. Simply put, PTVS is a disruption in flow within the complex network of nerves, tracts, and subsystems of the brain. Such disruption prevents...
read moreCranial Sacral Therapy
Our bodies deserve to be treated with kindness. Right? If you are looking to do just that, whether you are living with post-traumatic stress disorder, a traumatic brain injury, chronic neck and back pain, migraines, or any other emotional or physical ailment, why not give cranial sacral therapy (CST) a try? Discovered in 1970 by osteopathic physician John E Upledger, CST is not as new-age as you might think. I know, “cranial sacral” sounds nothing like new-age. You might cringe at the notion of someone messing with your neck and spinal...
read moreStress and Aging
With the holidays fast approaching, what comes to mind? The scent of pine, fruitcakes, latkes, fasting, the seven principles of Kwanzaa. What about stress? Crowds, too many family gatherings, pressure to buy gifts with money you don’t have – all kinds of stress. Sorry to be a downer, but during this time of year I can’t help but think about the consequences of stress. Though it’s an act of survival, meaning we either flee from or fight against harm, stress also speeds up the aging process. It wreaks havoc on the brain, heart, skin, and more....
read moreBenefits of Gratitude
Every year, on the last Thursday of November, American families, friends, neighbors, and the otherwise lonely, gather together to celebrate Thanksgiving. For many of us, this year will be no different, and we’ll engage in yet another gastronomic extravaganza. We’ll gnaw on spiced and tenderized turkey wings, eat forkfuls of oven-baked stuffing, scoopfuls of buttered mash potatoes, cleanse the palate with a slice or two of cranberry sauce, and slip into our sweatpants to make room for the must-have dessert: pumpkin pie. We will likely eat...
read moreCreating Powerful Prose
Are you looking for a solution to creating powerful prose? Of course you are. Why would you want your work to be clogged up with useless words, sentences, and phrases? After reading five online writing guides, I found that most of them agreed on the same words that, as one guide asserts, “deserve to die.” Many of the words you can safely kill are ambiguous ones like adverbs and adjectives. For instance, writing “The toddler jumped high” doesn’t tell us how high he jumped. Two inches? Ten inches? The same goes for the following: “The woman is...
read moreWe Can Cure Alzheimer’s Disease
Since November is National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness and Family Caregivers Month, I thought I would take the opportunity to thank the more than fifteen million Alzheimer’s and dementia caregivers in the United States for their hard work. You are to be admired, and applauded. More than forty million people worldwide have Alzheimer’s disease. Included in that number is my father, and perhaps your own parent, grandparent, spouse, or best friend. Because I often feel helpless when I visit my father in the nursing home as I listen...
read moreFootball and Concussions
It’s football season, and fans look forward to Sunday afternoons – sitting close to the television, cheering on their most-loved teams and screaming expletives at the screen when the opposition scores a touchdown. But I am here to share with you a voice that has recently spoken much louder, not about their love of football, but about the dangers of a sport in which the primary goal is to do everything, and anything, possible to prevent the opposing team from scoring a touchdown, even if it means hurling all two hundred plus pounds...
read moreMusic Session Etiquette
Now that fall has, well, fallen upon us, and the sun is hovering a bit lower in the sky, are you thinking ahead and starting to plan how you’ll spend the long, cold winter months (especially if you live in Vermont)? Are you a budding musician looking to play music with others? If so, you might be interested in joining a traditional session this winter. But, before I launch into music session etiquette, for those of you who don’t know what one is, let me define it for you here: Simply called “session,” it’s a term that describes a gathering of...
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